About the Fellowship

The fellowship commemorates the career and ideals of Jim Travers, reporter, foreign correspondent, general manager for Southam News, editor of The Ottawa Citizen, executive managing editor of The Toronto Star and national columnist for the Star at the time of his death on March 3, 2011.

Friends and colleagues of Jim Travers have established a fellowship fund to finance significant foreign reporting projects by Canadian journalists — staffers, freelancers or students — working in any medium. The Travers family enthusiastically supports the Fellowship and is actively involved in its development.

The fund has been established to make an annual award of $25,000 to cover travel, reporting and research expenses and a stipend for a journalist. It will be administered by Carleton University through its School of Journalism and Communication in the Faculty of Public Affairs.

The award reflects the importance that Jim Travers attached to his six years reporting from Africa and the Middle East. He believed Canadians deserve first-hand, in-depth coverage of important stories outside our borders. He argued passionately that it is crucial for Canadian reporters to “bear witness” — because in our interconnected world, “foreign” news is local news.